Such is the haste from which Cork football runs away from anything current to view everything through the distorted prism of July’s first Sunday, we can summarily discount yesterday’s 11-point victory over Kerry as utterly irrelevant, says Tony Leen.

The sense of unfinished business has lured four-time All-Ireland winner Paul Galvin into the unlikeliest of sporting u-turns — a return to the Kerry fold last night in Tralee, with a stated aim of winning a fifth Celtic Cross medal next September.

The night after Ballincollig surprised everyone by stepping over Nemo Rangers into a first Cork county football final, manager Michael O’Brien sat his management team, some players and members of the club’s executive down, writes Tony Leen.

There won’t be an announcement any time soon. It’s not his way.

I’M sitting at a small table in a restaurant in Castleisland with the most influential man in Kerry football over the last ten years for company.

From a county that bred mythical footballing giants, Kerry’s 2014 crop of defenders are more tight and tidy than terrifying.

Sometime, hopefully, an enterprising tv production unit might take a punt and invest a year of their careers living under the skin of a parish GAA club.

The case for the defence rests.

The €3 million-plus the GAA will pocket from the September 28 replay of yesterday’s All-Ireland hurling final is the cherry on top of a summer of bumper championship attendances for the association.

Sport needs to be partisan.